Tag Archives: Madonna

In honour of my idol Madonna’s birthday today, I’ve dug up a vintage article I wrote about the Queen of Reinvention on her birthday back in 2011 for GaydarRadio.com. Check it out here –Madonna Makeovers.

I have a memory from when I was about 11 years old of buying my best friend the Erotica album and green hair mascara for her birthday. Hair mascara may not have stood the test of time, but Erotica did. In fact, the album’s turning 21 and there’s going to be a celebration in London on Sunday 18 August.

“It’s turkey time – gobble, gobble”. No, we’re not talking about your Christmas dinner here. These words were immortalised by J.Lo in Gigli, a film that is commonly known – somewhat poetically – as one of the biggest cinematic turkeys of all time.

That crown, from what the blogosphere tells me, has now been snatched by Lindsay Lohan’s latest effort Liz & Dick. I’m set to watch this tele-movie treat for my birthday on Boxing Day so, in anticipation, I’ve revived my countdown of fat, juicy, camp as Christmas turkeys, originally published for GaydarRadio.com back in 2010. Where will the lovely Lilo fit when I’ve seen her car-crash (pun-intended) of a film? Watch this space!

Gigli
It’s difficult enough to pronounce the title of this movie, let alone actually watch it. Ben Affleck stars as a hitman with a heart of gold hired to kidnap a Baywatch-obsessed disabled man. Jennifer Lopez plays a lesbian, but it turns out that she is the type of lesbian Hollywood dreams are made of – she sleeps with men and talks dirty, using turkey analogies to do so, it seems.

Swept Away
I know all the words to the songs in Evita and I own a copy of Who’s That Girl. To put it another way, I’m not some fair-weather Madonna fan who claims to love her when ‘Give it 2 Me’ comes out only to disown her when ‘Celebration’ comes along. But I can’t argue with, well, pretty much everyone when they say Swept Away is a steaming hot pile of… turkey.

Madonna plays Amber, a Material Biatch on a cruise with her husband, but Goldie Hawn in Overboard she ain’t. Madge finds herself marooned on a desert island with Guiseppe, the cabin boy she treated like garbage, or her brother Christopher Ciccone if you believe his autobiography. What follows is a near-rape scene, some truly atrocious acting from Madonna and Guy Ritchie’s career being swept away much like Amber and Guiseppe. This is almost as bad as Madonna’s big screen effort with her first ex-husband, which conveniently brings us to…

Shanghai Surprise
Sean Penn stars as an Indiana Jones-type fortune hunter looking for a fast track out of China, while Madonna is a virginal missionary nurse seeking the curing powers of opium for her patients. Don’t laugh – this movie actually got made, which is perhaps the biggest “suprise” of them all.